Chapter Eighty-Two: The Nation's Focus

Imperial Capital, outskirts, Jingxian Villa.

The eleventh gathering of the J Station Music Section’s content creators was held here.

Everyone present was, in essence, a well-known creator in one or another part of J Station’s music community.

Behind each creator stood tens of thousands, sometimes even millions, of J Station fans.

This time, the exchange was scheduled on the eve of the “One Emperor and Four Kings” competition, with nineteen participants in total.

Among them, “Bellflower” Yang Jie, “Human Cannon” Zheng Lan, “Angry Sunflower” Shi Ruoxiang, and others counted as the star creators of this meet-up.

“Uncle A is in the Southern Division, so don’t even think about teaming up with this legend,” the well-known creator Shi Ruoxiang, who had 1.3 million followers, laughed. “He might even team up with Zero Zero Demon and wreak havoc in the Southern Division.”

Zheng Lan lounged in his chair, munching on chips. “I heard from the admins as well—Uncle A’s IP is in Donghai, so I gave up on teaming up with him a week ago.”

“It’s not that you gave up, it’s that God A never paid you any mind, right? Tsk tsk!” Yang Jie teased.

At this, Yang Jie couldn’t help but remember how he’d messaged Asdfghj multiple times a month ago. He sighed repeatedly—here he was laughing at others, but God A had never replied to him either!

Zheng Lan chuckled, “The true masters are always aloof. Since he’s so above it all, I won’t bother cozying up to someone indifferent.”

“Is Uncle A really that impressive?”

Someone grumbled, “Why is everyone talking about him lately?”

“Have you not been online lately?” Yang Jie replied. “Uncle A has released five piano pieces so far, each racking up several million plays, with two of them surpassing ten million.”

“And that’s not even the most impressive part! I heard his sponsorship fees now start at a hundred thousand per video. His value has skyrocketed!” Yang Jie added.

Hearing this, the person was dumbfounded. A single video ad worth a hundred thousand—this was the income of a top-tier creator.

Shi Ruoxiang smiled, “There are so many masters in the Southern Division. I heard a few days ago that a radio host stunned everyone aboard the Costa ship—even Yu Chengjiao, Meng Han, and Madam Ji Shilian were amazed. They praised him endlessly and even invited him to join the Music Association. Who among us could hope for such treatment?”

“A radio host?” Zheng Lan was surprised, curiosity piqued, and quickly asked for details.

Shi Ruoxiang then recounted the entire story of the exchange on the Huangpu River in Donghai, ending with a smile, “There are a few photos circulating online, but none of the pieces he played have been released. Oh, and have you listened to ‘Journey to the Western Regions,’ which has gone viral lately? That’s the radio host playing.”

Upon hearing this, Yang Jie immediately pulled out his phone and searched for “Journey to the Western Regions.” In moments, the grand, majestic notes of a concerto filled the room.

Everyone listened intently.

“It’s clearly classical music, yet blended with pop elements so seamlessly—it’s truly refreshing,” Zheng Lan sighed. “There’s always someone better, as the old saying goes.”

“No need to put yourself down,” Yang Jie laughed. “He’s a concert-level pianist, in the same league as Lin Weiyin and Meng Han. People like us aren’t even on their radar.”

The others all nodded in agreement, and after a round of mutual consolation, the conversation turned to forming teams for the competition.

Though it was only the preliminaries, the sheer number of participants meant the organizers had divided the event into two detailed phases to save on time and resources.

The first phase was the group stage: pianists could enter in pairs and face off against other pairs. If a pianist arrived alone, they would draw lots to determine a partner before the prelims began.

This resulted in all participants scouring the arena for the strongest possible teammate.

Of course, a partnership between two strong players was the most formidable.

A strong player paired with a weak one rarely yielded good results.

The second phase was the individual knockout round.

A panel of one hundred media judges and two thousand public judges would vote to determine the winners, ultimately selecting the top ten from each of the three main divisions in China.

The so-called “three main divisions” was an informal term used among the community, quite different in nature from the five international divisions.

For example, the Huaxia Division was further split into three: the first division (North), the second division (South), divided by the Qinling-Huaihe line, and finally the third division (Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan).

This last division accepted all Chinese pianists worldwide who had received a J Station invitation.

Zheng Lan and his peers belonged to the Northern Division.

Any pianist from over a dozen surrounding provinces and cities who received an invitation could participate, but all travel, food, and lodging were at their own expense.

This year’s Huaxia Division had countless applicants, but only 2,873 pianists qualified for the preliminaries.

Both the Northern and Southern Divisions had about 1,200 qualifying participants each.

The Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan Division had around 400, but since it gathered Chinese competitors from around the world, its overall level was significantly higher than the other two.

The preliminaries would last a month, selecting the top ten from each division—a total of thirty pianists would advance to the elimination round.

After that would come the semifinals, the divisional grand finals, and finally the world championship.

Anyone who made it to the top ten in the Huaxia Division was already considered a star—even without villas or custom sports cars as prizes, the rewards from sponsors and organizers were enough to fill their pockets.

The Huaxia Division champion, in addition to the “Four Kings” title, would receive a massive prize.

Notably, the “One Emperor and Four Kings” competition had no runners-up or third place—there was only the champion!

This made the value of the title even more concentrated and the most coveted by sponsors.

The following day, Second Division, Donghai Mercedes-Benz Cultural Center.

By seven in the morning, the area outside the center was already packed.

Alongside the 1,200 pianists from over a dozen southern provinces and cities, more than 7,000 ticket-holding spectators entered the venue.

From these 7,000, 2,000 would be randomly selected on-site at the start of each session to serve as public judges, ensuring fairness in voting.

In addition, all major southern media, newspapers, and TV stations were present. J Station was the exclusive live-streaming partner, broadcasting the entire event in real time.

As mentioned earlier, this year the “One Emperor and Four Kings” Piano Competition would not only be streamed live on J Station—renowned production company Mars Productions would also be involved, editing footage into shows for the three largest video platforms the following day.

All of this signaled that this original piano competition was destined to become a national sensation.